When Isabel and her husband went to Granada, after a long absence, in 1499, with the all-powerful Jimenez in his dirty, coarse, Franciscan gown, the difference of view of the husband and wife was again seen. The Moors of Granada had lived, since their capitulation, contented and prosperous in the enjoyment of toleration for their customs and faith under the sympathetic rule of the Christian governor, the Count of Tendilla, and the ardent, but always diplomatic, religious propaganda of Archbishop Talavera. If these two men had been allowed to continue their gentle system for a generation, there is no doubt that in time Granada would have become Christian without bloodshed, even if it had retained its Arabic speech. But Jimenez and the Queen could not wait, and determined upon methods more rapid than those of Talavera. In the seven years that had passed since Granada surrendered to Isabel, the crown of Spain had become much more powerful. The prestige and wealth of the sovereigns had been increased; the discovery of America had considerably added to the importance of Castile, whilst the expulsion of the French from Naples had magnified Aragon. The Jews had been expelled from Spain, and, above all, the Inquisition, under the ruthless Torquemada, had raised the arrogance both of people and priests on the strength of the stainless orthodoxy of Spain.
Jimenez doubtless felt that the circumstances demanded, or at least excused, stronger measures towards the Moslems in Granada. He soon persuaded or stultified Talavera, and set about converting the Moors wholesale. Bribery, persuasion, flattery, were the first instruments employed, then threats and severity. Thousands of Moors were thus brought to baptism, with what sincerity may be supposed. Jimenez, a book lover himself, and afterwards the munificent inspirer of the polyglot Bible in his splendid new University of Alcalá, committed the vandalism of burning the priceless Arabic manuscripts that had been collected by generations of scholars in Granada. Five thousand magnificently illuminated copies of the Koran were cast into the flames, whilst many thousands of ancient Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic texts were sacrificed to the blind bigotry and haste of Jimenez and Isabel, who, even in learning, drew the line at Christian writings. From sacrificing books to sacrificing men was but a step for Jimenez. Isabel and her husband had sworn to allow full toleration to the Moors, but what were oaths of monarchs as against the presumed interests of the faith? Soon the dungeon, the rack, and the thumbscrew came to fortify Jimenez’s propaganda, and, though the Moslems bowed their heads before irresistible force, they cursed beneath their breath the day they had trusted to the oath of Christian sovereigns.
The absence of Ferdinand and Isabel in Seville early in 1500, gave to Jimenez full freedom; and soon the strained cord snapped, and the outraged Moors rebelled. Like a spark upon tinder an excess of insolence on the part of one of Jimenez’s myrmidons set all Granada in a blaze; and the Primate was besieged in his palace, in imminent danger of death. He acted with stern courage even then, and refused to escape until Count de Tendilla with the soldiery dispersed the populace, and drove them into their own quarter, the Albaicin. There they were impregnable, and Tendilla, who was popular, with Talavera, even more beloved, took their lives in their hands, and unarmed and bareheaded entered the Albaicin to reassure the Moors. ‘We do not rise,’ cried the latter, ‘against their highnesses, but only to defend their own signatures,’[[85]] and the beloved Archbishop and Governor, who left his own wife and children in the Albaicin as hostages of peace, soothed the Moors into quietude almost as soon as the storm had burst.
The news flew rapidly to Seville, though Jimenez’s version was not the first to arrive, and when he heard it, Ferdinand turned in anger to Isabel. ‘See here, madam,’ he said, handing her the paper, ‘our victories, earned with so much Spanish blood, are thus ruined in a moment by the rashness and obstinacy of your Archbishop.’[[86]] Isabel herself wrote in grave sorrow to Jimenez, deploring that he had given her no proper explanation of what had happened; and after sending his faithful vicar, Ruiz, to placate the monarchs somewhat, the Archbishop himself appeared before the Queen and her husband. He was a man of tremendous power. Over Isabel his religious influence was great, and he proved now that he knew how to get at the weak side of Ferdinand. The Moors, he urged, had been converted by thousands; and so far, his work had been successful. But rebellion on the part of subjects could never be condoned, no matter what the cause, and he appealed to both sovereigns only to pardon Granada for its revolt on condition that every Moor should become a Christian or leave Spain. It was a shameful violation of a sacred pledge given only seven years before, but the rising of the Albaicin was the salve which Jimenez applied to the wounded honour of his Queen and King.
To Granada he returned triumphant, with the fell decree in the pocket of his shabby grey gown. More converts flocked in than ever when the alternative was presented to them. But up in the wild Alpujarras, the Moslem villagers and farmers looked with hatred and dismay at the lax townsmen abandoning Allah and his only prophet at the bidding of a ragged, sour-faced priest who broke his monarch’s word. Like an avalanche the mountaineers swept down from their fastnesses upon Malaga, beating back the Christian force from Granada which came to rescue the city. But Ferdinand from Seville and the greatest soldier in Europe, Gonzalo de Cordova, hastened with an army to crush the desperate handful who had defied an empire; and every Moor in arms, with many women and children, were pitilessly massacred. The repression was carried out with a savage ferocity and heartlessness only equalled by the despairing bravery of the insurgents; but at last, by the end of 1500, the few who were still left unconverted were brought to their knees: all except the fierce mountaineers of Ronda, a separate African tribe, notable even to-day for their lawlessness and indomitable independence. From their savage fortress over the gorge they repelled one Christian force after another, until Ferdinand himself, with vengeance in his heart against all rebels, came with an army strong enough to crush them. A ruinous ransom and instant conversion were dictated to them, and confiscation and death, or deportation to Africa, for those who hesitated.
Then came the turn of Granada itself. Jimenez and the new Inquisitor-General, Deza, the friend of Colon, demanded of Isabel and Ferdinand the establishment of the Inquisition in the city. This was considered too flagrant a violation of all promises; but what was refused in the letter was granted in the spirit; and the Inquisition of Cordova was given power to extend its operations over Granada. What followed will always remain a blot upon the name of Isabel, who with Jimenez was principally responsible. In July 1501, she with her husband issued a decree forbidding the Moslem faith throughout the kingdom of Granada, on pain of death and confiscation; and in February 1502, the wicked edict went forth, that the entire Moslem population, men, women, and all children of over twelve years, should quit the realm within two months, whilst they were forbidden to go to a Mahommedan country. Whither were the poor wretches to go but to Africa, opposite their own shores? and some found their way there. This was a pretext a few months afterwards for prohibiting any one to emigrate from Spain at all; and such Moors as still remained in Spain had only the alternatives of compulsory conversion or death.[[87]] By the end of 1502 not a single professed Moslem was left in Spain; and Isabel, with saintly joy in her heart, could thank God that she had done her duty, and that in her own day the miracle had come to pass: the Jews expelled, the Moors ‘converted,’ the Inquisition scourging religious doubt with thongs of flame; all men in very fear bowing their heads to one symbol and muttering one creed. This was indeed a victory to be proud of, and it made Spain what it was and what it is.
To Isabel, in broken health and sad bereavement, it was the one ray of glory that gilded all her sorrow. Not the least of her troubles were those arising from her new domain across the sea. The impossible terms insisted upon by the discoverer had, as we have seen, been accepted with the greatest unwillingness by Ferdinand, and probably with no intention of fulfilling them; and when Colon began to prepare his second expedition on a great scale, and thousands of adventurers craved to accompany him, the King realised the danger that threatened his own plans in Europe if such an exodus continued; and, at the same time, the tremendous power that this foreign sailor, now Admiral of the Indies and perpetual Spanish Viceroy, with riches untold, would hold in his hands. So the process of undermining him began. The Council of the Indies was formed to control all matters connected with the new domain, and the priests that ruled it obstructed and thwarted the Admiral at every turn. Isabel was mainly concerned in winning her new subjects to Christianity; and four friars went this time in the fleet to baptise. All of them but his friend Marchena were disloyal to the chief, and so were the crowd of Aragonese who accompanied the expedition. Of the fifteen hundred adventurers who at last were selected, the great majority were greedy, reckless men whom the end of the Moorish war had left idle.
At first the news from Colon on his second voyage were bright and hopeful. New lands, richer than ever, were discovered, and the prospects of coming wealth from this source, whilst delighting the King, only made the downfall of the Admiral more inevitable. But soon the merciless violence of the colonists provoked reprisals, and every ship that returned to Spain brought to Isabel bitter complaints of Colon’s rapacity and tyranny; whilst he, on his side, denounced the want of discipline, of industry, and of justice, on the part of those who were rapidly turning a heaven into a hell. At length the complaints, both of friars and laymen, against the high-handed Admiral of the Indies, became so violent that the sovereigns summoned him to Spain to give some explanation of the position. Colon saw the Queen at Burgos in 1496, and found her, at least, full of sympathy for him in his difficulties, and still firmly convinced that his golden hopes would be fulfilled. But the reaction had set in against the extravagant expectations aroused by his second expedition. The idlers, many of them, had come back disappointed, fever-stricken and empty-handed, and had much evil to say of the despotic Italian who had lorded over land granted by the Viceregent of Christ at Rome to the Spanish sovereigns; and though Isabel herself, full of zeal for winning all Asia, as she thought, for the faith, did her best, the treasury was empty after the wars of Granada and Italy, and the heavy expense of the royal marriages then in progress.
Amidst infinite obstruction from the Council of the Indies, and with little but frowning looks from Ferdinand, Colon’s third expedition was painfully and slowly fitted out. Few adventurers were anxious to go now; and condemned criminals had to be enlisted for the service; but, withal, at length in May 1498, the Admiral sailed on his third voyage to his new land. When he arrived at his centre, the isle of Hispanola (Haiti), he found that a successful revolt of the lawless ruffians he had left behind had overturned all semblance of order and discipline. The mines were unworked, the fields untilled, the natives atrociously tortured, and violence everywhere paramount. Isabel’s verbal instructions to the Admiral when she took leave of him had been precise. Her first object, she said, was to convert the Indians to Christianity, and to carry to them from Spain, not slavery and oppression, but the gentle, Christian, virtues. This doubtless to some extent was the desire of Colon himself, with his mystic devotional soul, though wholesale slavery of natives was part of his system, and he set about his work of the reconciliation of the Indians, whose horrible sufferings had driven them to armed opposition or flight. The undisciplined Spaniards had the whip hand, and the Admiral could only with much diplomacy, and perhaps unwise concessions to them, at length bring some semblance of peace and order to the colony. But mild as his methods were on the occasion, they were bitterly resented by arrogant Spaniards, indignant that a foreigner should wield sovereign powers over them in their own Queen’s territory.
Complaints and accusations more bitter than ever came to the King and Queen by every ship. The men who returned to Spain assured Ferdinand that Colon was sacrificing every interest to his own insatiable greed; and Isabel, favourably disposed as she was to the discoverer generally, at length lost patience when she found that he was shipping cargoes of Indians to Spain to be sold for slaves. To enslave infidels was not usually held to be wrong, and Colon considered it a legitimate source of profit: but Isabel’s new subjects, mild and gentle as they were, had been looked upon by her as actual or potential Christians, and her indignation was great when she saw that Colon was treating them indifferently as chattels of his own.[[88]] At length it was decided to send an envoy to Hispanola, with full powers to inquire into affairs and to take possession of all property and dispose of all persons in the new territories. The man chosen thus to exercise unrestrained power was Francisco de Bobadilla, probably a relative of the Queen’s great friend, Beatriz de Bobadilla, Marchioness of Moya; but in any case an intolerant tyrant, who considered it his business, as, by Ferdinand, it was probably intended to be, to degrade the Admiral in any case. With unexampled insolence and harshness, he loaded the great explorer with manacles almost as soon as he arrived in Hispanola; and then, whilst Colon lay in prison, the whole of the charges against him were raked together, and, without any attempt to sift them judicially, were embodied in an act of accusation, and sent to Spain by the same caravel as that which carried in chains the exalted visionary, whose dream had enriched Castile with a new world.